Heritage technology: helping to augment museum collections and enliven cultural engagement

‘Do not touch!’ The traditional experience of museums has, for many, been one of glass cases and barrier ropes. Fragile objects in museum settings are often at risk from damaging light and other environmental conditions, meaning that the public’s understanding of historic objects through tactile experience has been largely impossible. This is changing, though.

Based on their innovative, leading research in heritage technologies, including the internationally renowned 3D-COFORM, researchers from the University of Brighton continue to work with cultural heritage organisations, professionals and community groups to transform how art and cultural heritage collections can best be made available to the public. Thanks to this research and the partnerships formed with the heritage sector, not only can museums bring visitors closer to their precious collections, but artefacts can be made part of a multisensorial experience for all to enjoy. For experts, including archaeologists and historians, this means they are now able to gain new insight into historic artefacts through digital means.

Moreover, our digital cultural heritage researchers have transformed the practices of organisations and professionals in museums around the world. Leading a network of over 100 experts across three continents, they have created innovative digital technologies and methods that are now deployed by major heritage institutions across the UK, Europe and Brazil, creating tactile and audio-visual experiences that improve access to collections for thousands of users as well as new ways for visually impaired users to enjoy heritage collections.

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3D-COFORM and its legacy

The research has been co-developed through the University of Brighton’s partnerships at local, national and international levels, from the Royal Pavilion and Museums Brighton and Hove and Sussex Archaeological Society, to the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Germany) and the National History Museum of Brazil. By working directly with institutions, researchers have been able to respond to the rapidly changing environment of the museum and heritage sector. The method informed Brighton’s field-leading and influential EPOCH (2004-2008) and 3D-COFORM (2008-11), pan-European programmes that led to the consolidation of a new field of research in computer graphics for cultural heritage.

Recent international projects that built upon these include Pixel+ (2018-20), led by Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and The Royal Museums of Art and History, Brussels, which has enabled 3D depth images to be reconstructed, creating a better-defined resource to utilise, study and preserve heritage materials. This allows professionals and the public to view centuries-old objects and reveal hidden details, making artefacts more accessible, particularly during the coronavirus pandemic. This technology was used to study the figures in the 13th-century Rijmbijbel (the oldest preserved illustrated manuscript in the Dutch language), which led to the discovery that the heads of some of the figures were painted over at a later date. At The Royal Museums of Art and History, Brussels, the technology was used to make heavily weathered texts on almost 4,000-year-old Egyptian figurines readable again.

The European portal for Cultural Heritage, Europeana, has made provisions for the leading role these 3D technologies will play in education, research and the creative industries and in 2019-2020 established a taskforce with a cohort directly descended from the 3D-COFORM project, developing a framework and providing guidance on publishing 3D content for cultural institutions and other users. Their 3D ICONS project builds on the results of 3D-COFORM and has digitised architectural and archaeological masterpieces of world and European cultural significance providing over 1,000 3D models and related digital content.

Museum display includes a 3D replica of a Picasso ceramic, designed to be held, in front of a glass case with the original. Digital screen shows the technologies used in production.

(above) "Please touch". Digitally replicated Picasso ceramic allows haptic experience as well as visual in museum displays.

A Flemish portrait of a man in hat and ruff alongside a 3D image layering scan of the same painting rendered in shades of silver grey.

Reconstructing 3D depth images

3D technology requires new approaches to all aspects of digital cultural heritage, its production, documentation, management and exploitation. Through training and dissemination events tailored to the specific needs of different institutions University of Brighton researchers have developed heritage professionals’ technological approaches for digitisation and reproduction of cultural artefacts. Processes and technologies deploying 3D technologies have been disseminated across the sector, many of them designed to be affordable and accessible to professionals, who can go on to introduce or expand the use of 3D documentation methods in their work.

This research has advanced exhibition design and helps to develop curation processes in museums and galleries. The Barbican House Museum and the Brighton Museum and Art Gallery, for example, feature digital reproductions of Sussex archaeological findings including nationally significant human skulls and historical artefacts. Digital heritage researchers have also provided a foundation for these organisations to create historically accurate 3D facial reconstructions by digitally reproducing copies of human skull remains; as well as producing 3D-printed replicas that enabled blind audiences to experience works of art normally inaccessible to non-sighted visitors. Moreover, exhibition designers can create physical 3D puzzle by digitally ‘breaking’ a digitised artefact into fragments, using a computer algorithm, that are later manufactured using 3D printing, without any damage to the original; while young people can creatively connect with cultural heritage in their local area by developing personal narratives in the urban landscape accessible via web-based Augmented Reality technology. Finally, this has not only enabled curators to display previously inaccessible artefacts; but has improved audiences’ access to cultural heritage artefacts across the world.

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